Japanese Supermarkets and Valentine's Day Chocolate: Updated Feb. 20, 2025

Supermarkets top pick for buying Valentine's Day chocolates in Japan amid price hikes: poll

Article source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250212/p2a/00m/0bu/013000c

Commentary:

Traditionally in Japan, buying chocolates always happened in Japanese department stores and the departments usually had the best and of course most expensive chocolate offerings.

For example, whenever I visited Sogo department store at Yokohama eki, subway/train station they had many counters near the front related to chocolates and or strawberry cakes and so on.

Only recently because of the continued inflation in Japan, have Japanese consumers gravitated to the supermarkets which of course offer cheaper brands of chocolate gift sets.

But as we see, at 31% for supermarkets and 29% for departments stores there is not a big difference between the two choices as maybe the quality of department chocolates appeals to some and the lower price of supermarket chocolates appeals to others.

And at 15 percent for e-commerce sites online shopping of chocolates like at Amazon or even some chocolate making companies offering online purchases online shopping has not affected the buying of chocolates at the other two offerings, even though online shopping of course has become common place globally now.

There were 900 supposed women in the survey which might seem OK, but it distorts the results unless of course the survey company only wanted to see where women were buying their chocolate gifts for Valentines day.

Of course back in 2022, the pandemic might have still been on peoples minds and didn't want to buy at supermarkets or departments that much but chose e-commerce sites instead.

But even in 2022 it seemed department stores with the highest quality chocolate offering was still the number 1 choice.

But again, supermarkets, with lower costs chocolates and less quality seemed to appeal to some or many in 2023 and 2024.

It seems, even though its known that supermarket chocolate gift offerings are less quality than department stores offerings, it might be because of inflation and higher costs at the department stores that consumers in Japan are willing to sacrifice quality for price these days.

And or, as other articles have suggested the giving of chocolates has lost its luster so consumers in Japan are not buying the most expensive chocolates normally found at Japanese department stores, instead buying the cheaper chocolates at supermarkets.

But again, at 31% and 29 percent between supermarkets and department stores there is not a lot of variance or difference between the two, as may supermarkets might have had an advantage as Japanese consumers, went to supermarkets more than departments stores and it was more convenient to buy the chocolates at the supermarket, while there, instead of making another trip to a department store.

Again, the number of respondents was very low at 46% or less than half of the total of 900, which in itself might not be a big deal, but would have been better if more had responded.

And yes, of course price might have had a affect on where they bought their chocolate gifts, but again also maybe the importance of buying quality chocolates has lost its importance in Japan, so Japanese women instead chose the cheaper option at a supermarket.

Also the fact that women spent less could be related to the increase in price and or placing less emphasis on the important of Valentines Day might have been a reason for less spending.

Have a nice day!